Junior Inter-Regional Championships 2011-Scottish Orienteering

Junior Inter-Regional Championships 2011

The Scottish Junior Team were runners-up to a very strong team from the North-West in the Junior Inter-Regional Championships held in Cumbria on 2nd and 3rd July. The Individual took place on Saturday at Haverigg on complex sand-dune terrain and the Relays were held on Sunday at Simpson Ground near High Newton.

It was always going to be difficult to beat the NW Region on their home ground, but a young Scottish team (4 members were running up a class) as always gave of their best.

The Individual event took place on the complex sand dunes of Haverigg on the west coast of Cumbria in blistering heat. Chris Galloway showed the recent form which resulted in his selection for the European Youth Championships by winning the M16 class. Fellow GB internationalist Rona Lindsay, plagued by illness and injury for most of this year, had her “best run of the year” to come second to Florence Haines of Yorkshire, less than half a minute behind. As expected our strongest class was M14, with Callum White 2nd , Matthew Galloway 3rd and Andrew Barr 5th. Although there were only a few Scots on the podium, strength in depth (1st 2 to count in each age class) meant that that Scotland came 2nd out of the 12 UK regions and were presented with the runner-up trophy, 19 points behind NW.

The Relays took place on the completely different terrain of Simpson Ground. This is a very rough forested and marshy area east of Newby Bridge. Team of 3 consist of a 16, a 14 and an 18 in each team. Each Region can enter 4 girls’ and 4 boys’ teams with the first 2 to count. All courses were gaffled.

A spectator control close to the assembly area added to the excitement. It soon became evident that lots of mistakes were being made and the lead kept changing hands. Matthew Galloway was the star Scottish relay performer gaining 13 places to come home in the lead after the second leg. Frances Wright was first back in the girls’ race, closely followed by Rhona McMillan. Jenny Ricketts was fastest finisher on the 2nd leg. In the end strong teams from Yorkshire, South Central and West Midlands took the top 3 places in the boys’ race with Scotland 4th , 6th, 8th and 10th. It was a similar story for the girls. This time North-West had a clean sweep of the first 3 places with Scotland taking the next 4. Again Scotland were runners-up, this time only 3 points behind. Scotland lost the Women’s Trophy to NW, but came 1st in the Men’s trophy.